Wipes have been made from a variety of materials which may be dry or wet when used. Perhaps the most common form of wipes has been a stack of moistened sheets which have been packaged in a plastic container and are know as wet wipes. Typically, the wipes have had linear (e.g., straight) or non-linear (e.g., curved or zigzagged) edges and a generally rectangular configuration. The wipes have also been available in either folded or unfolded configurations. For example, stacks of wipes have been available wherein each of the wipes in the stack have been arranged in a folded configuration such as a c-folded, z-folded, quarter-folded or other zigzag folded configurations, as are well known to those skilled in the art. Each folded wipe could have been interfolded with the wipes immediately above and below in the stack of wipes. Alternatively, wipes have been formed as discrete wipes that are separate from one another upon formation into a stack of wipes and that are intended to not interact with one another upon dispensing. Still alternatively, wipes have been in the form of continuous webs of material which include perforations to separate the individual wipes and which are wound into rolls or formed into zigzag shaped stacks and then packaged in plastic containers. Such wipes have been used for baby wipes, hand wipes, household cleaning wipes, industrial wipes and the like. The wet wipes have been made from a variety of materials and are moistened with a suitable wiping solution.
The conventional packages which contain stacks of wipes, such as those described above, have been designed to provide one at a time dispensing which may be accomplished using a single hand. Such single handed, one at a time dispensing is particularly desirable because the other hand of the user is typically required to be simultaneously used for other functions. For example, when changing a diaper product on an infant, the user typically uses one hand to hold and maintain the infant in a desired position while the other hand is searching for a wet wipe, such as a baby wipe, to clean the infant.
However, the dispensing of wipes in such stacks has not been completely satisfactory. For example, users of the wipes have had difficulties recognizing and grasping the leading edge of each individual wipe to dispense or remove the wet wipe from the package. This problem has been particularly acute when the individual wipes in the stack are folded such that the leading edge of each wipe is folded over upon another portion of the same wipe, e.g., in a c-folded, z-folded or other zigzag folded configurations. Typically, the user will frictionally drag from one to three fingers across the top surface of the stack of wet wipes in an attempt to locate the leading end edge of the top wipe from the stack of wipes. However, the leading edge of each wipe in such a folded configuration has tended to have an affinity for the other portions of the wipe, especially when the wipes have been arranged in a stacked configuration for a period of time, and/or when the wipes are wet wipes due to adhesion caused by the moistening solution. As a result, in use, it has been undesirably difficult for the user to locate the leading edge of each wipe from the other portions of the wipe to facilitate the dispensing of each wipe from the stack of wet wipes.
Moreover, as each wipe in the stack of wipes has been dispensed or removed from the stack, the trailing edge portion of the wipe has not always easy to locate in case such is needed to separate the adjacent middle portion of the wipe from the trailing end. Such difficult location has undesirably caused the user to expend extra efforts searching for the edge to unfold the wipe to gain full access to its surface area for wiping. Such difficult location has undesirably resulted in reduced consumer acceptance.
The difficulties encountered in dispensing the existing wipes have been particularly evident in stacks of wipes which have a solution add-on (i.e., wet wipes, and particularly wipes with greater solution add-on) and in stacks of wipes which have a greater number of wipes. For example, each wet wipe and, in particular, the leading and trailing edges of each wet wipe, has had an increased affinity for the other portions of the same wet wipe as the amount of solution in the stack increases. As a result, the consistency and reliability of the dispensing of such wet wipes has undesirably declined as the amount of solution has increased. Accordingly, it is desired to provide a wipe and stack of wipes, each in a reach-in format, which have enhanced dispensability, particularly for wet wipes.